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The Truth about Fur

Fur

Behind the glamorous image of fur coats lies the reality of animal pain, suffering and death. Every year, millions of animals around the world are killed in traps, wire snares, or on filthy fur farms — all just to satisfy human greed and vanity. Friends of Animals has launched a hard-hitting campaign encouraging people not to buy fur. We are reaching the public and the media through innovative billboards and advertisements in magazines such as The New Yorker and Time Out. With your help, we will continue our efforts to educate the public about the suffering that goes into every fur garment. Click here to learn about our exciting "One Fur Coat" ad campaign.

Trapping Terror : Leghold Traps, Wire Snares and Conibear Traps

It has been widely publicized that each year more than 9 million wild animals are trapped worldwide and then clubbed, strangled and stomped for their pelts. Caught painfully in steel-jaw leghold traps, wire snares and conibear traps, many fur bearers try to free themselves by chewing off their own feet only to die later from shock and blood loss. This act of self-mutilation illustrates how incredible the pain caused by steel-jaw traps really is for wolves, beavers, coyotes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, and red and gray foxes. And for every "target" animal caught in one of these painful devices, two to ten times as many "non-target" animals are killed: hawks, owls, deer, and domestic cats and dogs.

Sometimes the steel-jaw will close on an animal"s head. When animals caught in snares try to escape, the wire cuts more deeply into limbs, necks or bodies. Friends of Animals video footage of Alaska wolves caught in snares horrified those who saw it on three national news broadcasts.Click here to learn more about trapping.

Ranching Torture

Contrary to what the fur industry would like the public to believe, animals raised on "ranches" spend their short, miserable lives in dark, filthy cages.They often live with disease and injury, waiting in wide-eyed terror for the day when gloved hands will reach into their cages and drag them to their doom. Minks suffer neck breaking or are stuffed into makeshift boxes pumped full of hot, unfiltered engine exhaust. Sometimes animals are not dead when the exhaust is turned off and they wake up under the shock of being skinned.

Lynxes, coyotes, foxes and chinchillas are often killed by anal electrocution, forced to bite down on metal bits while electric rods are inserted into their anuses. Last year, approximately 2 million animals were "ranched" for their furs in the U.S. Internationally, about 30 million animals suffer violently and are killed each year on ranches. It takes 60 dead minks to make one knee-length coat. Click here to learn more about fur "farms."